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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, February 23, 2012
Volume 28 No. 8
CURLING - Pg. 19Local advances tocurling’s next level WEATHER - Pg. 20Warm winter not ablessing to someSPORTS- Pg. 8Ironmen facing eliminationagainst WalkertonPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Sister pays tribute to Bokhout in ‘Globe and Mail’
Drummond Report
could affect Raceway
Strapping them on
Two-year-old Brianna gets her skates on, with a little help from her mom Kara McNichol, at the
Blyth and District Community Centre on Monday’s Family Day holiday. The free public skate
was held as part of North Huron’s Family Fun-apalooza Winter Luge-athon. Events were held
throughout the Township of North Huron at its three community centres. Huron East also held
several Family Day activities throughout the municipality, including Brussels. (Jim Brown photo)
After the initial shock of her
brother’s death and the passing of
the Christmas season, Jessica
Bokhout sat down to write what she
hoped would “complete the picture”
of her brother John.
Jessica has been a great fan of The
Globe and Mail for years, she says,
and she has especially admired the
newspaper’s ‘Lives Lived’ section.
Soon after John’s death in
November, she knew she wanted to
honour him through a medium she
greatly admired.
The time elapsed between John’s
Nov. 15 death and her piece being
published in The Globe and Mail on
Feb. 14 gave her a chance to speak to
others about her brother, hearing
stories she may not otherwise have
heard.
“I thought this would really be a
nice way to share John,” Jessica said
in an interview with The Citizen.
“We had so many other stories
shared with us and so many great
things came out of that.”
Jessica said that she spoke with
many of John’s friends and other
family members who shared their
stories about John and every story
provided a new view on John that
perhaps she didn’t have before.
After hearing all of these stories,
paired with her own experiences
with her brother and their family,
once Jessica began to write, she
realized it would be a difficult
process.
The section calls for a 500-word
limit on submitted pieces and
Jessica’s first draft, she says, was
two pages long.
“It was a great process to sit down
and write about John,” Jessica said.
“I had to try to get across what I
wanted people to know about John,
what was special about him.”
Jessica eventually submitted a
piece that was approximately 500
words long, but it faced a further edit
before it saw the newspaper last
week. Jessica, however, was happy
with how the piece turned out.
“I was very pleased with it, given
the amount of space I had to work
with,” she said. “I think it gives a
good sense of John and all the lovely
bits about him.”
There has been an outpouring of
comments from friends and family
members, Jessica says, who feel that
the piece has given them a chance to
get in touch with all new emotions
stemming from John’s untimely
death.
“Our family has all read it and I’ve
received a lot of lovely words back,”
Jessica said.
It is, however, John’s friends who
have surprised Jessica since the
piece was published.
“I’ve heard from a lot of John’s
friends, friends he had known his
whole life,” Jessica said, “and you
don’t often see 22-year-old guys
opening up about their emotions.”
From John’s friends, Jessica says
she has heard that the remembrance
has summoned memories of playing
hockey at the Bokhouts’ home and
playing ministick hockey in the
family’s basement, among other
things.
While the piece has left a
On Wednesday, Feb. 15 Ontarians
were given a view of their financial
future by economist Don
Drummond that will involve a lot of
cuts.
Drummond’s 668-page, two
volume report is filled with 362 cost-
cutting suggestions broken down by
department and spending habits and
includes some fairly stark numbers.
If the province approves
Drummond’s report, education will
be capped tightly, with primary and
secondary funding being increased
by a maximum of one per cent per
year and universities only being
allowed to increase 1.5 per cent per
year. Healthcare and social services
are also being kept to maximum
increases of 2.5 and 0.5 per cent
increase per annum.
The entire goal of the report is to
see the province try and eliminate
the deficit by 2017-18, something
that would not have happened if
spending continued the way it was at
the provincial level according to
Drummond.
His figures state that the deficit
will increase to over $30 billion by
that time if his changes are not
implemented.
Every single recommendation is
being considered by the provincial
government according to Ontario
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.
He stated that everything save a
suggestion to scrap full-day
kindergarten was “in the mix”.
Unfortunately those kinds of
decision undermine the intent of the
report according to Drummond.
“This is not a smorgasbord from
which the government can choose
only the tastiest morsels and ignore
the less palatable,” he said.
One of the recommendations has
to do with a profit-sharing system
the Government of Ontario has had
with organizations like the Clinton
Raceway since 1999: the time of
Premier Mike Harris.
Duncan, who mistakenly referred
to the system as a subsidy, stated the
agreement would need to be
reconsidered and possibly cancelled
prior to the report being released.
Currently slots like the Clinton
Raceway in Central Huron are run
with profits being split between the
Province of Ontario (75 per cent), a
local raceway (20 per cent) and the
host municipality (five per cent).
The document makes reference to
ending that business arrangement
but doesn’t elaborate how, leaving
people like Clinton Raceway Chair
Morag Watt with a lot of questions
about the plan.
“It’s unclear what the result of that
would be,” Watt said. “Certainly it
would mean less money going into
the local economy, but it isn’t like
we can be cut out; we own the
building.”
Watt is referring to the fact that,
when this deal was originally
penned with facilities like the
Clinton Raceway, the provincial
government provided no capital in
terms of the building.
The Raceway board put forward
the nearly $3 million to have the
building erected and the government
got involved after that.
“The government made no capital
investment at all,” she said. “At the
time we didn’t know if it would
An inquest into the death of Huron
OPP officer and Wingham resident
Vu Pham will begin in London in
March. The provincial government
made the announcement on
Friday.
The inquest will begin on March
26 at the Best Western Stoneridge
Inn. It is expected to last 13 days,
during which, approximately 30
witnesses will speak.
Following the inquest, the jury
may make recommendations that
will attempt to prevent similar
deaths.
Pham, a 15-year veteran of the
police force, was 37 years old at the
time of his death. Pham pulled over
a pickup truck being driven by 70-
year-old Fred Preston on March 8,
2010.
Preston fatally shot Pham in the
head before being shot six times by
Pham’s partner Del Mercey. Preston
died three days later in a London
hospital.
Pham left behind his wife Heather
and three children.
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 6
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Pham inquest coming
Continued on page 10